Today’s special at Hollywood's new hotspot is a deadly dose of positivity – gruel is optional

I felt distinctly ungrateful after enduring a meal at Cafe Gratitude.

'OK folks,” barks the waitress in a voice so loud it sends ripples across the surface of my green tea. “Today’s question is, 'Where are you most liberated?’” We’re in Café Gratitude, a restaurant serving “soul food” to the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and Cameron Diaz, and I’m having trouble focusing. This may be Hollywood’s new hotspot, a place where the elite and unwaxed come to get a near-lethal dose of positivity, but the menu appears to be, well, vegan.

My eyes skate past the starters – the “I Am Thankful” curried soup and “I Am Connected” buckwheat salad – to the main courses. I’m caught in a lacklustre wrangle between the “I Am Transformed” corn tacos and the “I Am Whole” sea-vegetable dish when I spot something that describes itself as a “BLT”. Never have those three letters looked so good. “I Am Extraordinary,” I tell our Prozac-eyed waitress, “with extra bacon, please.” For a moment I think she’s going to batter me about the head with her recycled notebook. Instead, she mutters something about pork-free zones, turns on her Birkenstocks and leaves.

Hard to imagine that one could ever yearn for a sautéed coconut sandwich, but after a 25-minute wait, I’m desperate for mine. There’s plenty to distract you – from the spiritual printed handouts to the ladies room, where “I adore myself and everyone else” is scrawled across the mirror – but in the end, you do sort of want to eat something.

When my gruel did arrive, on a plate inscribed with the words “I am Grateful”, I had to suppress a smile. When the bill came, and was just shy of $100 for three of us, there was no smile to suppress. I didn’t feel grateful, effervescent, vibrant, magical or loved. But I did feel a rush of all those things when we stopped off at the McDonald’s drive-thru on the way home.

On the subject of gratitude, did I miss the memo on thank-you letters being phased out? A couple of times over the past year I’ve been surprised to receive no word of acknowledgement for a present I have sent. Then this week, I received a “thank-you email” for a birthday gift sent to a friend’s daughter.

Now, I realise that the multimedia world has confused things for youngsters – if I had a cane I’d be shaking it now – but that makes it all the more important to clarify the rules. Only for the smallest of favours can thanks be sent by email, text message or tweet. Presents and large favours should always be recognised in a letter.

If you’ve tried to send a letter recently, you’ll understand why. It’s a crusade in which you will be thwarted at every level. You can’t buy stamps anywhere, you can’t use post boxes, since their mouths have been reduced to half their original size, and you certainly can’t take a day off to spend queuing at one of the three remaining post offices in Britain. Which is why receiving a letter is proof of genuinely felt gratitude.

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Can we try one last time?” I’m in an LA “copy shop” trying to send not a letter but a fax. The number is busy or the code isn’t right, or – and this seems the most likely explanation – faxes just don’t work.

Curiously for a country that prides itself on functionality, there’s a thriving fax culture in the US that doesn’t exist back in the UK.

Because the thing about faxes is that they never worked – not even in their heyday. You’d get the sweats from the moment the “F” word was mentioned, knowing that it condemned you to hours of pointless combat with a machine whose ear-splitting noises signified nothing except the absolute certainty of a problem. The writing would be too dark or faint, page 4 would inexplicably be lost and you’d be left with a bellyful of impotent rage and a series of illegible, Egyptian-style scrolls.